


His Favorite Criminal

by rebel_diamond



Series: Alias [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Rumbelle Prompt Showdown, Rumbelle Showdown 2018, Woven Lace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 14:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14696499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebel_diamond/pseuds/rebel_diamond
Summary: Weaver is killing time at the station on a rainy night when his favorite criminal saunters in.*Winner of the 2018 Rumbelle Prompt Showdown* Written under the pen name Deshelved. Story entries for Rounds 1-5, plus sequels.





	His Favorite Criminal

**Author's Note:**

> Round 1 prompts: a rainy winter night; buying ice cream; ignorance is bliss.

It was pissing with rain. Weaver sipped his coffee out of the chipped tea cup that everybody knew only he used. He scowled out of his rain streaked office window that looked out onto the puddle riddled sidewalk. It was always pissing with rain in Seattle. There was about a month in May, when it was actually rather nice. But right now, it was winter. It was dark. It was cold. And it was  _pissing_  with rain. Earlier he’d sent Rogers out into the deluge to follow up on some leads and kept the paperwork portion of the workload for himself. Because of the weather, it was a quiet night in Hyperion Heights. Nothing to do but keep himself warm. He fingered the tea cup. It was comically elegant for a police precinct and no one knew how it had made it into the break room cupboard. Weaver didn’t know why he favored it, but he did, and he’d been using it for as long as he remembered.

A knock on the open door behind him interrupted his reverie. 

The officer in the doorway waved a manila folder in the air, “Got one for you.”

“For me?” Weaver bristled. He’d finished his paperwork earlier in the evening and had been waiting for Rogers to come back from the field with his report.  

The cop shrugged, “She said she’d only talk to you.” He took a few steps into the room and offered Weaver the folder.

Weaver left his spot by the window. She? Could be anyone. Possibly Roni, the local bar owner, with another complaint about being harassed by Victoria Belfry. Not that he’d do anything about it, but Roni tended to bring a bottle of MacCutcheon with her when she asked for favors and the supply in his lower right-hand desk drawer was running low. 

“Alright,” Weaver sighed, taking the folder without looking at it, “bring her in.” He walked back behind his desk, tossing the folder on top and adjusting the shirt sleeves he’d rolled up his forearms. 

Several pairs of footsteps, including a pair of high heels approached his door. He looked up and a woman stumbled around the corner, two officers on either side, one gripping her upper arm. She wrenched her arm out of his grasp, “I told you, I know my way.” She rubbed where the officer had held her, “Bloody hell.”  

Weaver knew everyone in Hyperion Heights. He had files on half of them. And he knew her. Lacey French.

“Miss French.”

She turned those laser blues eyes off the officers she was glowering at and onto him. Her glare instantly faded into a slow smirk. Pleasure radiated down his spine, or was it the whiskey finally kicking in?

“Detective,” she purred, looking at him from under heavy lashes and slinking into his office.  

He’d always known her to favor small blue clothes and today’s number was no exception. She must know they would bring out the blue in her eyes and throw men to their knees. They often did fall at her feet. Usually because she put them there using her wiles or her knee. Either way you felt it in your groin. Her auburn hair was piled high on her head, as usual. All the better not to hide the plunging neckline of her sleeveless blouse and the black lace bra that peeked out.

Didn’t she have a coat? It was winter for god’s sake. “Does Miss French have a coat?” he barked at the officers. 

She glanced back playfully at the cops who were still darkening his doorway, “We, ah, kind of left the bar in a hurry, didn’t we boys?” she winked at them. Weaver’s frown deepened, and they scurried away.     

“Is that so?” he glanced down at the file in front of him, flipping it open to the newest entry. He raised his eyebrows, and the whiskey landed in his stomach like lead, “Solicitation for prostitution?” He knew her rap sheet by heart. He’s kept her file on his desk a little too long and stared a little too hard at her mug shot. Shoplifting, disorderly conduct, illegal gambling. All repeat misdemeanors that Weaver personally kept from becoming felonies. But this was a new one. His eyes skipped up and down the paper, looking for the ‘John’ who was brought in with her. He’d find the man and kill him.

Lacey rolled her eyes, “He wishes.” She flounced into the chair opposite his desk, making herself at home. Realizing this was going to take a while, Weaver sat down. This is exactly what he didn’t want. Lacey French in his office. Her visits generally didn’t end with her leaving. They continued in his head, long after she’d sashayed out. “Keith owes me $200 from pool and didn’t want to pay. I went outside to talk to some people, he calls the cops on me for ‘prostitution,’ and I requested you.” She leaned forward conspiratorially, “Now how about you open that right bottom drawer. I know that’s where you keep the whiskey.” 

How she knew the contents of his desk drawers would be a conversation for another day.

Weaver perused the case file, “Well, Keith’s case is flimsy.” Just then one of the officers thrust his head back in the office, proffering Lacey’s coat.   

She popped out of her chair, “Oh, thank you, Charles!,” apparently she was on a first name basis with the squad. The move gave Weaver an uninhibited view of her black bra strap from the open back of her top. He remembered a blue sequined mini dress that was equally scarce in the back.

“Do you own a piece of clothing with a back?” he ground out. It came out harsher than he meant it, and out loud.

She spun on her heels, hand to her cheek, as if he’d slapped her. Was she angry? Offended? Then a mischievous smile spread across her lips and her pinky finger slid to her mouth. She was pleased. Like she was finally seeing the real him. He’d revealed himself. She’d been baiting him for years and finally he let his guard down and fell for it. She was delighted and now he was the one in trouble. She sauntered back over to his desk, caressing its edges.

“I like to feel it when my back is up against a wall.” She paused. Then looked straight into his eyes. “Literally or figuratively.”  

The air hung heavy between them. He needed to get her out of his office. Now. He had the gist of the charges. The rest he could sort out later. He cleared his throat and stood up, “C’mon, I’ll drive you home.”

“No,” she yelped, straightening. At his surprise, she recovered quickly, “I mean,” her spine relaxed again and her voice returned to its normal slow drawl, “I have something I gotta do. Besides, I don’t let guys walk me to the door unless they at least buy me a drink first,” she finished smoothly. He didn’t know if that last bit was a shutdown or a suggestion. While he preferred the latter, he felt safer with the former.  

He watched as she cinched a little black trench coat around her waist and traipsed off on her heels, out of his office and out of the station. 

His eyes narrowed. What was this errand she had to run? Was she headed back to the pool hall to exact revenge on Keith? He had to know. For the case. When he reached his car, she was a block ahead of him, so he coasted a distance behind her with his lights off. She couldn’t be going far, walking in the freezing rain. Unless somebody was picking her up that she didn’t want him to know about? She bypassed the brightly lit stores, heading towards the shadier part of town. She ducked into a sketchy bodega that he knew kept odd hours. What was she buying? Drugs? Had he been protecting a real criminal while he’d thought she was a petty thief? Roughly three minutes later, she emerged.

Ice cream. She’d bought ice cream. He could see it through the cheap plastic bags she carried, one in each hand. At least three quarts of it. Why would she buy all that ice cream? He didn’t need to be a detective to deduce that it wasn’t all for her. Obviously, she was going to share it but with who? A boyfriend? She didn’t have a husband. He knew that from the police database.

She adjusted on her heels before continuing down the sidewalk until she disappeared into a doorway. Weaver glanced up. There was a light already on in an upstairs apartment. Someone was waiting for her. The boyfriend, surely. Weaver lingered. One shadow appeared and crossed the room. Soon after another joined it behind the closed curtains. Maybe a roommate. Weaver gunned the engine. Maybe it was better not to know. He peeled off. Maybe ignorance was bliss.


End file.
